


danger days flash

by knameless



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album)
Genre: Gen, Multi, Other, who the fuck knows what this is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 14:59:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 59
Words: 11,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11106972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knameless/pseuds/knameless
Summary: so i write a lot of random ficlet-type shit for the killjoys and i figure maybe i'll start compiling them into one anthology or whatever. these follow no specific storyline, are unconnected, and can be read in any order. probably a forever work in progress.





	1. the legends

“What, doncha know who we are?” the redhead asked, smirking. He tossed his head, flicking hair out of his eye. “Well shit, I’m Party Poison,” he said, placing a hand on his chest, “also known as the eye candy of the group.” 

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, resting his hand on his hip. “That motherfucker with the badass helmet is Kobra Kid.” The individual indicated wordlessly raised a hand in acknowledgment. 

“The short angry one is Fun Ghoul--” a muffled “fuck you” was heard in the background-- “and the crazy fool wearing black in the middle of the desert is none other than the incredible Jet Star.” A single nod. 

“So now you know all of our names, though honestly I’m just amazed you didn’t know them before,” Party Poison finished. He was still grinning like a Cheshire cat, but a hard light suddenly glinted in his eyes, and his fingers brushed across the handle of his raygun. “Now how ‘bout ya tell us something about yourself?”


	2. a delicate sneeze

“Look, the Vend-A-Hack’s button’s a little sticky, you just need to press it hard,” was what Jet said, or rather, was what he would have said if he hadn’t actually just let out the world’s biggest spray of snot and air and saliva, directly onto Kobra Kid’s face. 

Immediately, the blood drained from Kobra’s face. Dazed and blinking rapidly, he stumbled backwards, falling flat onto his ass when his heel hit a rock.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jet could see Party cackling like a hyena, grabbing at Fun Ghoul’s sleeve and slapping his arm, unable to catch his breath (Ghoul was also bent double and hugging his stomach, dissolving into uncontrollable giggles).

From his seat on the ground, Kobra looked up at Jet, an incredibly sad expression on his face. “You sneezed in my mouth,” he said, sounding hurt. “My mouth.”

Jet let his arm fall to his side, the Vend-A-Hack console hanging, forgotten. 

Party’s laughing only intensified, until it became too much and he just started wheezing and crying, burying his face into Ghoul’s shoulder so he wouldn’t look at Jet and Kobra and go off all over again. 

“Dude. My _mouth_.”


	3. a mistake

the idea first got planted into everyone’s heads when they happened to stumble upon a tiny bakery in a miniscule little ghost town. the storage room was still partially stocked, to everyone’s surprise.   
“i mean, what the fuck are we s'posed to do with all this grain shit,” party asked, “make fucking bread?”  
it was only once kobra found the tin of baker’s yeast that the lightbulb went off over jet’s head.

“it can’t be that hard,” he explained to the others. “like, back in ancient history they made beer because the water was too dirty, right? it should be fine!”  
the others had no objections. brewing beer sounded a lot more interesting than baking bread.

buckets and pots were pretty easy to find, and it was no trouble to build a fire to boil everything in. they didn’t have any hops, but jet just threw in a couple handfuls of random herbs they’d found in a dusty box in the diner pantry and hoped for the best. he was pretty sure that those sacks of grain were barley. pretty sure.

after a few hours of toiling over the unfermented brew (wort is what Jet could’ve called it if he knew the word), jet sealed it up and stowed it away for a suitably long amount of time to ferment

“a suitably long amount of time” ended up being 5 days because they all got impatient.

kobra knew as soon as he caught a whiff that he was most definitely not interested in whatever concoction jet had mixed up in a misguided faith in his own DIY survival abilities   
the others were less wise.

the thing is, you can’t really die from home-brewed (or any) beer (unless it’s been poisoned, I guess?). the natural fermentation process kills off any pathogens that remain after all the materials have been sterilized.   
of course, that won’t stop it from tasting absolutely horrific.

only two were spared from the Great Beer Disaster of 201?– the kobra kid and the girl  
party and ghoul continued drinking only because they kept daring each other to finish– they both regretted it… immensely the next morning   
jet, normally so sensible, persisted because he refused to let all his hard work go to waste

“it’s not so bad,” he said, trying to speak over the sounds of party and ghoul throwing up in the background. “c'mon kobra, try it”


	4. bathroom stall poetry

(in faint pencil: )

i met jesus once  
standing in the middle of the highway  
she took off her sunglasses gave me a can of lemonade said  
“you better do right, kid. you better keep your boot to the gaspedal”  
so by the moon and my gun and all the stars above  
i’ll try  
– KM

(slightly below, in messy red marker, with a drawing of a pill capsule and a cross: )

PARTY POISON WAS HERE AND HE KILLED YOUR MOM MUTHAFUCKAAA

(to the left, in black pen: )

Dear whoever pissed on the floor instead of in the fucking toilet: I hate you


	5. the beginning (the end)

Party wiped her tears away with his thumb. “Baby, I’m sorry,” he said softly, “She’s not here anymore.”

“Because she’s dead,” she said thickly, her small voice sounding so, so sad.

Party didn’t know what to say. She was so tiny. He just gathered her up in his arms, hugging her bird-bones body into his chest and wishing he could pretend they were somewhere better.

Her sobs were very, very quiet.


	6. missing piece

“Truth.”

There was a long pause. Then, slowly, tentatively, “What do you miss most about the city?”

Ghoul was quiet for a few moments, his eyes looking somewhere far away, white and cold.

“My mother.”

He wondered if she’d cried.


	7. the believer

His hair looked like embers in the light of the campfire, and his eyes were like twin stars. Party shivered a little, mostly from the cold, wrapping the blanket tighter. 

They’d quickly realized that he was fucking crazy, but so were they, and at least he knew his way around the sandbox. Party was willing to hang around this dream-chaser if it meant his and Kobra’s chances of getting ghosted were a little lower. 

Jet’s head was thrown back now, looking at the stars, and his face looked softer, somehow, in the orange cast. Party felt his eyelids grow heavy.

He hadn’t really expected to get so attached to a guy who thought aliens were real, but they were sure stuck together now.


	8. don't bite your tongue now

Pony looked sympathetic as he rifled through the huge bag on his lap, snapping a pair of gloves on. “Honey, I’m sorry, but you’re gonna need something to bite down on.”

Ghoul hissed, tensing in the cracked leather seat. He already felt light-headed from the blood loss. Looking straight ahead, he reached over to his right and fisted his hand in Party Poison’s sleeve, pulling him close.

“Grab my fucking hand,” he gritted out, staring determinedly at a point on the wall across from him. Party snorted, taking it anyway. “Pussy.”

“Just hold my fucking _hand_ , you _fuck_.”


	9. he doesn't talk about it

Ghoul rolled over blindly and grasped at the first thing he felt, burying his face in a worn t-shirt. He gasped, deep, shuddering, almost painful breaths ripping out of his body, and he screwed his eyes shut tight.

He felt bony fingers skate briefly over his shoulder and through his hair, stroking lightly down his spine and up again.

He didn’t say anything, and neither did Kobra. There was nothing to say.


	10. what do they know?

The sandbox has been empty for a couple weeks now. 

They’ve been driving around a lot, windows rolled down, squinting in the wind and the grains of sand it kicks up. But they haven’t seen a single white suit. Not that they get into claps every day. But it’s been weeks, and everyone is on edge.

“It’s just weird,” Ghoul says one night when they’re huddled in the diner. He’s sitting in a window and the light from the moon only illuminates half his body, leaving the rest in shadow. He shifts, and the light glances off his cheekbone and glints in his eye. “It’s not like them to just disappear. Dracs aren’t subtle.” It’s not in their wiring.

A few days later, Party and Jet are driving down the highway, on their way to pick up supplies, when Jet catches a glimpse of something white flapping in the wind. He shouts at Party to stop the car. 

Jet gets out first. By the time Party collects the keys and locks the doors and jogs around the car, Jet’s crouched on the side of the road. Party comes up and stands behind him, and together they look down.

It’s a mask. Standard-issue, plastic fangs and ratty synthetic hair. Jet picks it up. Underneath is a set of neatly folded white fabric– a jacket and a shirt and a pair of slacks– a uniform. Pristine, except for a few smudges from the earth below it. 

Jet slowly turns to look up at Party, the limp, deflated mask gripped loosely in his hand. Party feels a shiver run down his spine and grips his blaster out of habit. 

Where did they all go?


	11. warning

The message came over the radio in crackles and hisses, a raspy voice sending a warning out to the four corners of their world.

Party’s eyes slid over to the passenger seat, meeting Kobra’s gaze and holding it for a beat. The static from the radio buzzed in the air between them.

Wordlessly, Party pulled the clunky goggles down over his eyes, tightened his grip on the steering wheel, and slammed his boot against the gas pedal.

The dull-yellow scene outside and the quickly darkening sky melted into a smear as the dirty car tore down the center of the road.

Kobra pulled his kerchief over his nose with one hand, rolling up his window with the other.

The wind was picking up, biting and slicing at the barren landscape below it.

They were only a few miles away from home. They could make it.

They could beat the storm.

In the distance, too far for them to possibly be able to hear it, a siren pulsed and screamed.


	12. first time

He couldn’t hear a fucking thing, not even his own voice. There was sweat running in rivulets from his hairline and down his spine, and he just couldn’t stop moving. Flashes of blue and red and purple. The whites of their eyes around him.

The crowd carried him with it like a current, refusing to let him fall, and he went willingly.

Newly dyed hair, still imagining the feeling of the bleach stinging his scalp. For the first time since he’d made it to the sandbox, he didn’t feel anxious or afraid, he wasn’t a warped puzzle piece that didn’t fit in the picture. He was a part of this, he fucking belonged here. He felt more comfortable in his skin than he had in his entire fucking life.

He was so over standing still. The color had stained his hands for days. It had stained his soul forever.

He was getting elbowed in the ribs, cuffed around the head, and he didn’t fucking care. He was nowhere near the stage, and he didn’t fucking care.

In flashes of light and fragments of the stage seen through the pulsing crowd, he caught a glimpse of the singer tossing their hair, snapping their head back and forth to the drumbeat. They were fucking magic, he thought vaguely, barely able to form coherent sentences even in his own head. Fucking magic.

He couldn’t hear a word of the song they were playing, but he knew it was the best he’d ever heard.


	13. near death experience

Ghoul blinked slowly a few times as his consciousness dredged itself out of the blackness and the world came into focus, feeling stabs of pain behind his eyes. He was lying on the floor, he realized, and everything hurt.

He took a rattling inhale that dissolved into a minor coughing fit. “Guess I didn’t die after all,” he managed hoarsely. There were a few seconds of silence.

Then: “You _stupid_ motherfucker!” came Jet's strangled voice from somewhere to his side.

He never even saw the punch coming.


	14. burns

Dry lips rasping over discolored spots of skin; he shivers. Calloused fingers brush each and every scar, delicately, strangely sweet. It’s not what Party’s used to, but he arches into it, drinks it up like sunlight.


	15. call the doctor

Party surged up onto his knees, bending over the Kid's prone form. “Hey, hey, honey, motherfucker, it’s fine, everything’s fine,” he said in a rush, cupping Kobra’s face in his hands. The other’s face was pale, fucking ashen, but his eyes were still wide-open and alert. Party glanced down at Kobra’s red shirt-- it had been yellow before--

“Shit, fuck,” he bit out, under his breath. He looked helplessly to Ghoul. “We don’t--”

Ghoul suddenly started taking off his shirt, and Party watched with wide, panicky eyes as he bundled it up and and shoved it over Kobra’s stomach, pressing firmly down even when the Kid choked and gasped. Ghoul glanced up at Party, a grim set to his mouth, before returning his fierce gaze to Kobra below him. “There is no fucking way you are dying from a goddamn shanking,” he spat. “You hear me?” Kobra nodded slightly, his eyes sliding shut. 

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Party swore, slamming his fist into the ground beside him. Ghoul didn’t say anything, just kept staring at Kobra’s face, his hands shaking as he pressed down.


	16. you have to decide if you're gonna let yourself be haunted forever or not

Jet snapped, his fist slamming first into the table, then into the wall.

Ghoul froze immediately, spine stiffening. “You still don’t trust me,” he hissed disbelievingly. “You think I’m still--”

Jet’s eyes widened. “No-- I just--”

“After every fucking thing I’ve-- what do I have to do to prove it to you? You still think I’m gonna turn and stab you in the fucking back the second I--”

“No-- I just-- I have to be careful! I have to make sure--”

“You have to make sure I’m not a fucking sleeper?” Ghoul asked, a dangerous tone creeping into his voice. “Fuck you. I wanted this. I risked my fucking life for this, hell, I’ve risked my fucking life for _you_ , and you think I don’t mean it?”

Jet stared wordlessly at him, hand throbbing as he clutched it to his chest. He hadn’t meant to say it. 

“Sorry, not all of us are perfect revolutionaries. Not all of us have been doing the right thing since we were sixteen,” Ghoul said, before slamming the door of the diner behind him.


	17. bastard cards

She squinted at him over her cards, raising her eyebrows in a way reminded Kobra all too much of his brother. “Ten-to-one,” she said, “Queens.” 

“Shit,” he muttered. Never mind Party, it was Ghoul she was getting to be too similar to, beating him at every fucking card game they played. He tossed his cards onto the table. “Fine, fine, dust it up.”

She smirked and slid his abandoned cards over to her own pile. “Coal mine.”

He thunked his head onto the table and blindly tossed some carbons at her. She was cleaning him out. He’d be bankrupt within the hour.


	18. no one but me

“I’m _fine_ ,” he bitches. 

Party taps Ghoul’s split lip, twisting his mouth in a mocking way when the other flinches. “Yeah-fucking-right you are,” he replies in the same bitchy tone, before his expression shifts to something a lot darker. “Who did this?”

Ghoul shrugs, wrinkling his nose. “It doesn’t fucking matter.” He moves to shove past Party, but stops when he feels the redhead’s fingers close, viselike, around his arm. 

“No,” Party growls, his hand traveling up to trace not only the split lip, but the blood streaked across Ghoul’s cheek, the reddish skin under his eye. “Who fucking did this?” His grip tightens on Ghoul’s bicep, and he looks _pissed_. Ghoul stares at him, mouth open slightly.

“They’re not going to get away with fucking up that pretty face,” Party says softly, cupping Ghoul’s face in his palm. He sweeps a thumb over Ghoul’s cheekbone. “ _No one gets to touch my fucking crew._ ”


	19. identity

Party pops open the bottle of dye with his thumb before balancing it carefully on the rim of the dirty sink. He doesn’t have bleach; the roots will have to wait. His hair is wet already, lying dull and stringy against his skull. (He avoids his own gaze in the cracked mirror. He looks ugly.)

He doesn’t bother with gloves; the chemical stench is as familiar as his childhood home, and the more mess from the dye, the better. His eyes slide closed as he works it through his hair, tugging on the ends a little to make sure he gets every inch.

He is very aware of the cold tiled floor and the muffled sounds of the others coming from outside the door and the ache in his knees and the smell of the dye as it creeps into his lungs. He is very aware of the tingling of his scalp from the contact of his fingertips, and the dye dribbling down his neck and around his ears. He loses himself in the sensations for a while.

When he opens his eyes, he places his stained hands on the edge of the sink and leans forward, bringing his face close to the mirror. He considers his reflection in silence, cocking his head from one side to the other. 

He blows a kiss at his reflection. That’s more like it.


	20. toil and trouble

"What?” Ghoul asked, affronted. “It’s food!” 

Kobra glanced at the spoonful of whatever-the-hell-was-trying-to-be-passed-off-as-edible that Ghoul was dangling from his hand. It steamed menacingly. Kobra felt a palpable aura of malice radiating from it, but Ghoul appeared not to notice. He just sniffed and said “picky, picky, picky,” returning to the gurgling, spitting pot over the hot plate.


	21. glitzy, ritzy

While fixing his hair in the reflection of the window, Jet finds his eyes sliding over to the palette Party had left out on the counter. He looks carefully at the colors, then back at his reflection, considering. Who said Party was the only one allowed to get a little glittery sometimes?


	22. snooze

The sunlight floats through the window in a hazy fashion, filtering through dust motes and sand particles to fall across Kobra’s face as he sleeps. It is very hot in the metal shell of the vehicle, but it doesn’t seem to impede Kobra’s slumber. 

There are empty wrappers and broken crayons lining the floor of the car, as well as mysterious dark red stains on the cushions. Kobra is using a plastic bag as a pillow, the material stuck fast to his cheek. 

A fly buzzes against the window, bouncing its tiny black body off the glass in a pointless attempt to break free. 

In his sleep, Kobra rolls over with a rustle, tucking his skinny knees into his chest. 

The fly abandons the window and lands on his nose. He sneezes without waking up, and it flees to hide on the steering wheel. 

Kobra sleeps on.


	23. it's like getting a bad trip but you haven't taken a fucking thing

One second Party was leaning up against the counter, humming tunelessly and waiting for Jet to finish paying for his new charger, and the next second the world was melting. 

_Shit_ , he thought, _not now_ , and then he started screaming. He collapsed to the floor, doubling up and vomiting-- it came out red, spattered across his palms, and he tried to scream again, but the whole world twisted and went blue and very, very bright and he saw teeth snapping and a giant fucking explosion-- a nuclear fucking bomb--

And then he opened his eyes and sucked in a huge breath, so deep it hurt. _What-- where--_ he felt something wrapped around him and started struggling and flailing his arms, still gasping for air, and immediately got dropped on his ass. 

“Well, fuck, if you don’t like me carrying you, you better stop fainting in public,” came a voice from above. 

His thoughts finally slotting into place, Party looked up, chest heaving, to see Jet standing over him. He blinked, and Jet crouched down next to him. Party twisted his head over his shoulder, looking around himself. They were a few yards outside of the store, and he was sitting in the dirt. _Oh, fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh--_

Party snapped his head around to look at Jet as he placed a firm hand on Party’s shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s okay. You just passed out. Totally silent. There wasn’t any screaming or thrashing or anything.”

“Are you-- but I felt--” Party shut his mouth abruptly. He didn’t want to think about it. 

Jet straightened up, offering a hand for Party to do the same. Party still felt shaken up, twitchy, shivery. He could see it still, afterimages seared onto the insides of his eyelids _(lighting, fangs, rippling and bubbling)_ but he shook it off. Passing a hand over his eyes, he just nodded and said, “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let’s skid out.”

Jet nodded, and together they walked back to the car. Party handed Jet the keys wordlessly and got in on the passenger side. Jet gave him an anxious look, but he didn’t press it, and Party leaned his head back against the seat, staring up at the ceiling. 

He placed a hand over his own chest, and waited for his heart rate to go back to normal.


	24. 1.2.3.4.

He shifted the gun from one hand to the other, eyeing the makeshift target several yards away.

He looked down, almost nervously, at the weapon in his hands. He’d known that he would have to use it eventually, once he left. He had to be prepared. There was no going back. This was something you threw your whole self into. This was real. This was his life.

He brushed a strand of hair away from his forehead, closed one eye, and straightened his arm out.

He was a killjoy now. He had to start acting like it.

–

It had been an accident.

The exterminator had taken a step forward and he had just been so, so angry, so sick of doing what they told him and watching them stalk around in their horrible white masks, and his whole body was shaking and he’d just pulled the trigger, he hadn’t even been thinking, his finger just twitched and a pulse of light had shot out and there had been such a hush afterwards, a silence so thick and heavy it felt like it was pressing down all around his skull, and he’d dropped the gun and just started running, even though he knew he couldn’t hide, they had cameras, they’d seen his face, they were going to find him.

It had been an accident. 

–

“Stop! Kid!”

His throat was burning, his chest felt like it was about to collapse, but he forced himself to keep running. His sneakers slammed against the pavement and tears stung in his eyes, and he clutched his younger brother’s wrist like a lifeline, dragging him along behind.

They were fast behind him but he knew this city, he knew these alleyways, and like _hell_ he was going to let anything happen to his brother.

Then the two took a turn and found themselves facing a dead end, the wall staring down at them like a fortress. The older kid spun around but he could hear their boots pounding, too close. _No–_

The instant the first one rounded the corner, a bottle slammed down from above, shattering against the white mask. The exterminator toppled immediately, gun skidding across the ground, and the older dove for it, scooping it up and clutching it in trembling hands.

“Go!” he shouted, twisting his head over his shoulder. The younger made it to the top of the wall but refused to drop to the other side.

“Not without you!”

The second exxie slid around the corner to come face to face with a shaking, black-haired teenager, pointing a blaster straight at her. The kid’s eyes were almost hidden by his hair but they looked harsh and wild, and the exterminator almost took a step back before noticing her partner crumpled on the ground.

“You–”

The kid squeezed the trigger, and a bolt of lightning flickered out of the barrel of the gun and hit the exxie square in the chest. She fell backwards immediately, body thudding to the ground with a grim finality, but the black-haired kid didn’t have time to reflect on it, he was too busy hauling himself over the wall, sneakers slipping on the bricks and his brother fisting his hands in his shirt, trying to pull him over.

They both overbalanced and toppled over the wall, hitting the ground painfully but immediately springing up to keep running. They couldn’t stop. They couldn’t stop now. 

It wasn’t until later that the older noticed he still had the blaster gripped tight in his hands.

–

He took aim. Carefully. Precisely. The goggles he was wearing slid minutely down his nose, and he relaxed his stance briefly, taking a hand off the gun to push them back up.

_Breathe in._

_Breathe out._

He focused his gaze, narrowing his eyes slightly and cementing himself more solidly into his stance, adjusting his legs, his elbows, his spine, all to line up correctly. 

_Relax. There’s no kickback. It’s a wonderful little machine. A perfect tool. Just like yourself._

He pulled the trigger, blinking as the shot went off, despite himself. He would have to work on that. 

When he opened his eyes again, there was a burn hole, directly in the center of the silhouette’s forehead.

He smiled, wide and sharp.


	25. folks like you

He groaned, but it only earned him a swift kick to the ribs. “Exxie bitch,” spat the joy looming over him. “They let you off your leash, mutt?” The blue-haired rebel kicked him, again, and he bit the inside of his cheek so hard it bled. There were other joys, three of them, just standing around over him in a circle, looking on disinterestedly. “You don’t fool us.”

The joy grabbed him by the hair (it was starting to get long, growing out of the close-cropped style to curl around his ears and fall in his eyes) and hauled him into a sitting position. They crouched and jammed a blaster under his chin, looking him straight in the eye with an expression of disgust so vitriolic it felt like getting stabbed with a needle. “You ready to meet DESTROYA, stickman?” His heart raced and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. _This is it,_ he thought. _I did it all for nothing._

And then he heard the rumble of an engine, and the joy holding him looked around sharply, before swearing and shoving him back to the asphalt. “Shit, fucking– _vamanos_ , let’s go!” 

He could barely see between his swollen eye and the gloom of the night, but he heard engines revving and the squeal of tires as they clambered onto their bikes and sped off, leaving him lying in the middle of the road. He closed his eyes as the thumping of the car drew nearer to him. 

After a few moments, he heard the sounds of a pair of boots walking close by his head. He kept his eyes shut. Maybe if they thought he was dead already they’d just leave. He felt his consciousness starting to go fuzzy around the edges anyway.

“Hell,” came a hushed voice. “Dude, I think he’s really hurt. He’s still breathin’ but he’s out cold.”

“Shit,” agreed a second. There was a considered pause. “You wanna take him to Nukey’s? Get him sewn up?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think so. Let’s put him in the backseat.”

He felt two pairs of hands clumsily pull him up and half carry, half drag him into the back of a car, and then his will finally gave out and he let himself slip into the encroaching, very tempting waves of blackness lapping at the edges of his mind.

He passed out.


	26. coyote waltz

"My hand goes on your waist," Show Pony said, moving closer, "and yours goes on my shoulder." He brought their free hands together then, tangling their fingers and squeezing, gently. 

"I got two left feet," Party muttered, staring at the floor like it insulted his mother. 

"That's why I'm leading," said Pony, with a smirk.


	27. i don't need a fucking wingman you assrat

Party grinned and blew a puff of smoke in the black-haired joy’s face. “Well, maybe people wouldn’t assume you were such a wet fucking dishrag if you didn’t act like one all the time.” 

Ghoul scowled, pulling back from the cloud of smoke. “Yeah, and maybe people wouldn’t assume you were such a cocky fuck if you didn’t go around invading people’s personal space and giving out unwanted pearls of wisdom all the time.”

Party rolled his eyes and plucked the cigarette from his own mouth, placing it between Ghoul’s lips before he could react. He patted Ghoul’s cheek. “Get on the dance floor, tarbaby. You’ll thank me later.”


	28. too horrible to look at

“It’s not even a cool story,” Pony sulked, shrugging his jacket off and sitting right down on the floor in front of D’s chair. “I was just discoing, you know, kicking it out and I wasn’t really paying attention and I tripped over this chick on the floor and lost my balance and fell _facefirst_ into a _table_ ,” he moaned, clapping his hands over his face. He peeked up through his fingers. “Is it really that bad?”

D choked a little trying to hold in his laughter. “Oh, lordy, you got taken out for a spin by a _table_ \--”

“I know!” Pony wailed, leaning forward and clutching at D’s knee. “My pretty face, ruined, and I can’t even brag!” He collapsed backwards onto the floor, staring at the ceiling. “I’m hideous.”

“Well,” D said, considering, “It ain’t so bad. You’re always wearing that helmet anyway.”

“You don’t understand,” Pony muttered from the floor. “You’re not beautiful.”

D threw a Mousekat bobblehead at him.


	29. returning champions

It was very late by the time Fun Ghoul and Show Pony clattered into the station; the Doctor had retired a few hours earlier, but Kobra Kid was sitting up for them in the broadcasting room, flipping through a magazine. It was past midnight and he was indoors, but he still had his sunglasses on. 

Kobra looked up as he heard the sounds of them swinging the boards shut and dumping their gear on the floor, and then Ghoul stepped through the door, looking a little like he got run over. 

“Yo, what the hell?” Kobra asked. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Ghoul snarked.

Kobra squinted behind his sunglasses as Ghoul collapsed into a chair, holding a rag to his bleeding nose. “You don’t look fine.”

“Then stop looking.”

Kobra turned to Pony, who was just entering the room behind Ghoul, raising his eyebrows questioningly. Pony leaned on the door and rolled his eyes. 

“Transactions went fine. I’m pretty sure Tommy had more boxes under the counter but whatever, we got what we went for. Then we got back outside and found a coupl’a uglies trying to lift the wheels off the van. Genius here--” he jerked a thumb at Fun Ghoul, who grunted in response “-- thought it would be a good plan to try and solve the problem using his head. Literally. He headbutted the first guy in the stomach and then he got punched in the face by the second.”

Ghoul made an angry noise from his corner of the room. “Yeah, but _then_ I punched him _back_. In the dick. He’ll never be able to get it up again for _nothin’_."

Pony shrugged. “Yeah, they did run off really fast after that. I think it was just ‘cause they noticed me standing behind you, though.”


	30. there for you

Party Poison groaned, collapsing in on himself and burying his face in his hands. “I just feel like I’m goin’ fucking _nuts_ , you know? Like my brain is fucking _frying._ ”

Show Pony tucked a rogue strand of hair behind Party’s ear and rubbed his shoulder a little. “You’re gonna be okay, sugar,” he said gently. “All the best artists were the tortured ones anyway.” 

Party groaned again. 

Pony held his arm out then, and Party Poison settled into his side with a barely audible sigh. Pony squeezed him for a few moments, holding Party close, before he turned to clap the other’s shoulder, look him dead in the eye, and say, “You know what we’re gonna do now?”

Party raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“We are gonna get so _fucking_ drunk together.”


	31. oops

Drunk on the thrum of the music and the movement of the crowd, Fun Ghoul thrashed and screamed and laughed, shouting until his throat felt ragged and his lungs burned. This was so fucking incredible. This was so fucking _incredible._ He’d been to concerts in the Zones, yeah, but he’d never had such a good time as this, not fucking _ever_. He never wanted the night to fucking end. 

The song suddenly switched to a high-speed bass solo, all the other band members coming completely to a halt as the bassist leapt into the spotlight (literally). Only a little dizzy from the rapid shift, Ghoul turned his head, and suddenly, there was Party Poison, sweaty and glittering, with a wild look in his eye, and there was his hair and his face and his mouth and Ghoul got so carried away he didn’t even think, he just surged up onto his toes and pressed their lips together right in the middle of the thrashing crowd. And Party just went with it, threw his arms around Ghoul’s neck and shoved his tongue into Ghoul’s mouth and kissed him like the world was ending (which it really already had). 

They broke apart, and in the few seconds afterwards while Ghoul’s ears were still ringing, he had just enough time to start freaking out before Party grinned, sharp as a knife, and pulled him in again. 

“You’re fun,” Party shouted over the noise, his face only about three inches from Ghoul’s, “You crazy motherfucker, I like you!”

In the darkness Ghoul couldn’t see much, but he caught a glimpse of the bright slice of Party’s grin and felt a matching one spread across his own face. Then Party released him and they both turned back to the stage, crying out jubilantly as the band crashed back into the chorus. 

\--

Party suddenly pulled the car over on the side of the road, barely avoiding flattening a couple of desiccated shrub bushes. Ghoul eyed him warily from the passenger seat. Party had been mostly silent on the drive back from the concert, ever since they left the venue, and Ghoul felt like now there was this tension buzzing in the air between them. He felt sick to his stomach, sure that he’d done something wrong, that he’d fucked everything up. He hadn’t meant to kiss Party like that, he shouldn't have, he just--

“Get out of the car,” Party said.

Ghoul’s throat closed up. Oh, _hell_ , oh, he’d really fucked up this time, he’d finally found a crew that liked him and wanted him around and he had to go and fuck it up ‘cause he couldn’t control his fucking--

“Get out,” Party repeated. 

Numb, Ghoul unclipped his seatbelt and unfolded himself out of the car. He stood next to it, running one hand briefly through his hair and kicking nervously at a rock on the ground. Fuck. Was Party going to leave him here? Would he really just dump Ghoul on the side of the road and drive off? Ghoul couldn't believe it; he was losing his first group of real friends and his remaining shreds of self-respect all in one night. 

Then Party opened his own door, got out, and walked right around the car to Ghoul, leaving the car running. Before Ghoul even had time to panic about getting punched or anything, Party had tipped the other's chin up with one hand, slid easily into his space, and fit their mouths together again. Ghoul almost let himself go boneless from it, let himself get carried away again, but then he came to his senses and abruptly jerked backwards, breaking the kiss.

"What the fuck?" he fumed, shaking Party's hands off of himself. "What do you fucking want from me?"

Party cocked his head, looking at Ghoul curiously. "...Thought it was kinda obvious."

Ghoul stared at him. "What?"

"Well," Party scratched his head, mussing up his hair in the back. "I kissed you real hard, an', you know, usually kissing like that means you wanna get into someone's skinny jeans. So. Like. I wanna get into your skinny jeans."

"You kissed me, yeah, and then you gave me the cold shoulder for half an hour, told me to get out of your car, and _then_ kissed me _again_ ," Ghoul said flatly. "Wow, I really used to think you were slick, you know, but that is the worst set of mixed signals I've ever fucking received."

Party stepped back a little, holding his hands up. "So like, you don't wanna? That's okay, man, I'll drop it, no problem, just probably don't tell Kobra 'cause he'll hit me for tryin' to--"

"Of course it doesn't mean I don't wanna," Ghoul said exasperatedly. He grabbed Party by the front of his jacket and jerked him forward so that their noses were touching. "It just means I think you're fucking stupid."

Party cracked a grin. "I can live with that, sugar," he said in a low voice, and closed the distance between them. 

It was soft and sweet for maybe two seconds. 

Somewhere between Party slipping his leg in between Ghoul's (causing Ghoul to make a totally embarrassing sound which he would never admit to in daylight) and Ghoul biting at Party's lower lip so hard it _had_ to hurt, Ghoul found himself with the backs of his thighs pressed up against the front of the Trans Am. Party stepped forward, and Ghoul stumbled a little to keep his balance. Party kept his mouth stuck fast to Ghoul's throat but kept pushing, a little urgent, trying to press Ghoul down onto the hood. Oh. _Oh._

“Wait,” Ghoul said, putting a hand on Party’s chest. Party stilled immediately, drawing back to look at Ghoul's face in what little light they had from the headlights of the car. “I don’t-- I mean--” Ghoul swallowed, “Like I don’t want this to be a, a going-steady-buy-me-flowers kinda deal. No offense, man. But I don’t really wanna settle with you.”

“Oh, shiny,” Party said. “Me neither. We do this, and nothing changes, right?”

“Well,” Ghoul smirked, “Maybe not _nothing_. I wouldn’t mind having more of this--" he flicked Party's belt buckle with his finger "--in my future.”

“We’ll see,” Party said, and when he grinned, Ghoul felt it against his neck. Party levered him the rest of the way down, slowly, bending him backwards onto the hood of the Trans Am. Ghoul hooked his ankles around Party's waist and shivered, partly from the bite of the cold metal through his clothes and partly from the way Party was running his hands up Ghoul's sides, slipping under his shirt. 

“Honestly?” Ghoul hiccuped as Party dragged his teeth down the other’s throat. “Been wanting you to do this since you first punched me out in that bar in Zone 3.”

“Fuck, don’t I know it,” Party growled, and then he slithered a hand down to fumble at the button on Ghoul's jeans and, well. Alright.


	32. hot mess

Party Poison leaned on the horn as they swerved to a halt in front of the radio station’s door. Windows already rolled down, they shouted, “Your hot date has arrived!” and beeped the horn again for good measure. 

Rolling his eyes, Show Pony pushed himself off of the wall he’d been leaning on and sauntered over to the car. Bending down to peer through the open window, he said, “You got the tickets?”

Party grinned and tapped at a couple slips of paper taped to the dashboard. “Ready to rock. C’mon, the engine’s runnin’.”

Show Pony opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, leaning over to give Party a smacking kiss on the cheek. “You’re not gonna expect me to put out just ‘cause you bought the tickets, right?”

“Of course not,” Party said primly. “I’m a gentleman.”

Pony laughed. “Now if that ain’t the biggest lie I’ve heard this week.” Party gave him a dirty look and moved to start rolling back onto the road when Pony squinted at them and said, “Hold the fuck up.”

Party stopped and gave Pony a weird look. “…Yeah?”

“You need glitter.”

"I do not. I hate glitter,” Party grumbled, “It’s fucking itchy.”

“You can’t just show up to a Mad Gear show without any junk on your face!” Pony insisted, gestured to his own sparkling visage. 

Giving an exasperated sigh, Party leaned over to rummage in the glove compartment, eventually emerging with a tube of lipstick in their hand. They uncapped it maybe a little more forcefully than was necessary, and jerked the rearview mirror in their direction. 

Pony watched as Party applied the color, and as soon as they turned and said, “Better?”, Pony wrapped a hand around the back of their neck and yanked them in for an open-mouthed kiss. Party squeaked into Pony’s mouth but reciprocated enthusiastically, and when they finally broke apart, Party had a mess of hot pink smeared all around their grinning mouth and streaked across one cheek. 

“There,” Pony said with satisfaction, settling back into his own seat. “Now you’re ready to go see the Gear, baby.”


	33. capsules

Ghoul hunched over the toilet, gripping the rim of the cold porcelain so hard it made indentations in his palms. 

He could still feel them, sitting at the bottom of his stomach like dead weight. Clogging his throat until he couldn't breathe. Spilling out his mouth to roll across the floor. He knew it was irrational. That didn't stop him from wanting to bang his head against the bathroom stall door until he started bleeding. 

He exhaled, huge and shuddering, and his stringy hair fell into his eyes. A hand came around and brushed it away, tucking it behind his ear. 

"Ghoul..... you're shaking," he heard Kobra say, sounding like he was right in Ghoul's ear and miles away at the same time. Ghoul passed a hand across his forehead and sat back onto his haunches. "It's okay," he said tiredly, "I'm over it now." 

Kobra's hand touched his face again, briefly, and then he stumbled to his feet, holding out a hand to help Ghoul do the same.


	34. a harmless old man

"Hey, now, you wouldn't hit an old dude in a wheelchair, wouldja?" D tried. 

The gloved fist that the drac sent rocketing into his nose seemed to disagree.


	35. speaking in tongues

They tried to hold him down, but that only made Party thrash harder, and Jet got worried that he was gonna dislocate his shoulder or something.

The worst part was his eyes. They went huge and terrified and whenever they landed on you, it felt like they were looking right through you, seeing something so horrible it could only be described in screams. 

Kobra mostly just bit at his fingers and hoped for an ending.


	36. what kinda jerk

"I'm going to introduce that jerk to the wrong end of my blaster," Jet said angrily.

She scowled and picked at the gummy bandaid on her arm. "Fuck off. If anyone gets to kill him, it's gonna be me."


	37. hey pussy

Kobra was a good guy, Ghoul thought, because he never felt the need to fill a perfectly good companionable silence with meaningless chitchat. Even though he was a bitch who never shared his cigarettes, which, whatever, Ghoul didn't want them anyway.


	38. sleeping habits

The shack they’re camped out in for the night is pretty shit, but Ghoul and Kobra are so sick of being in the car, they’d be willing to sleep in a ditch if they had to (Party can’t relate. He’d never get tired of his baby).

The other two seem to settle in easy; Kobra passes out almost as soon as he hits the floor, using his folded up jacket as a pillow, but Party doesn’t even bother trying to fall asleep. He knows he won’t be able to. He just snatches one of the blankets from the trunk and sits outside, isolating himself in the backseat of the car. She always makes him feel calmer, his head clearer, and even though he isn’t sleepy at all, the warmth of the blanket cocooned around his body and the peace of the hushed desert night aren’t exactly unpleasant.

He sits there for a long time, maybe an hour or so, just letting his mind buzz and his thoughts run around his brain, before he’s startled by a knock on the window. His first instinct is to grab the blaster strapped to his leg, of course, but right after that impulse comes the realization that the person doing the knocking is Ghoul. Party pushes the door open.

“Hey,” Ghoul says softly, tucking a piece of long black hair behind his ear. He sounds tired. “Could I stay here? I know you usually stay up, and I’d go bug Kobra but he kicks like a motherfucker when you wake him.” He scratches his arm. “I just.. don’t sleep well when I’m alone.”

Party scoots over, wordlessly extending his arm and opening the blanket to Ghoul. Ghoul slides in, shutting the car door after him, and settles into Party’s side. He yawns.

“It’s not that I have trouble falling asleep,” he says quietly, more like it’s to the desert, or the universe, than to Party. Party waits for him to finish the sentence, but he doesn’t elaborate. Party mentally shrugs it off and settles more comfortably into his seat. Ghoul shifts and tucks his head into Party’s neck, his warm breath faintly blowing against Party’s hair, and they stay like that for a long time.

Eventually Ghoul falls asleep. He doesn’t shift, doesn’t scream. He just sleeps. Party stays awake for a while afterwards, feeling kind of jealous, before he realizes that he actually feels sleepy as well, and is so surprised by it that he doesn’t even think to try to fight his heavy eyelids.

At dawn, Kobra wakes up to find himself in an empty shack, with his two traveling companions wrapped around each other, totally unconscious in the backseat of the car. He has to bang on the window to get them to unlock the doors. 

Ghoul yawns, and then makes an indignant noise when his head slips off of Party’s shoulder as the other disentangles himself from the blanket and clambers into the driver’s seat. He makes grabby hands at Kobra, saying “Dude, come sit with me.” Kobra rolls his eyes but folds himself into the backseat, and Ghoul snuggles right up to him. 

Party snorts, turning the key in the ignition. “Don’t get attached, KK. He only wants you so he can sleep.” Ghoul flips him off in the rearview mirror.


	39. sweet

"Hey, come sit on the roof with me," Pony said, walking into the room with a six-pack of orange soda under his arm. "I have soda," he said unnecessarily. 

"Sick," Ghoul said, "I fucking love orange soda." 

It was dusk. The roof of the radio station was dusty and the drinks were warm, but there was a breeze and Pony had lots of good stories about people Ghoul had never met, so Ghoul wasn't complaining. 

"I can't believe he ate it!" Ghoul wheezed, putting his soda down on the rooftop so he wouldn't spill it. 

Pony laughed. "Listen, Beetle's got a heart of gold and I love him, but he's dead stupid when it comes to dares!" 

They snickered together on the rooftop for a while before lapsing into a companionable silence, gazing out over the sparse desert scene below them. 

"We should kiss," Pony said conversationally. Ghoul almost looked around to see if he was talking to someone else, but they were alone on the rooftop. 

"Do you wanna kiss?" Pony shifted to put his hand on Ghoul's knee. 

"What," Ghoul said, and then, before he could do anything monumentally stupid like say no, choked out an "Okay." 

Pony smiled at him and leaned in, softly covering Ghoul's mouth with his own. Ghoul closed his eyes. They stayed like that for a few moments, Pony gently moving against Ghoul's lips, and Ghoul had just started to really get into it when Pony broke the kiss and sat back. 

Ghoul tried not to look like he was disappointed (because he wasn't, um, why would he be disappointed) and picked up his soda again, chugging it out of nervousness. 

Pony seemed content to just sip his soda and swing his leg back and forth over the edge of the roof. 

Ghoul put his can down. "Did you... ask me to come up here just to kiss me?" he asked. 

"Nah," Pony said, "But like, I just got the impulse and I wanted to act on it, ya know? Carpe diem." 

Ghoul lifted the can of soda to his lips again. "Alright." 

Pony toasted Ghoul's shoulder by knocking his empty can against it. "Alright."


	40. midnight-thirty

Cherri didn’t really have a concrete _schedule_. He kinda just plugged in and started broadcasting whenever he felt like it, whenever he had something he wanted to get out across the waves. He rarely shared actual _news_ ; most of his broadcasts were just intense slam poetry sessions-- at least that’s how they sounded to Pony.

And there wasn’t anything _wrong_ with that-- Cherri wasn’t even that bad of a wordsmith, honestly, he had this _way_ of getting words to crawl inside you and set a fire in your lungs as he ranted into his mic, spreading his sounds across the desert. He was good at what he did. And the people liked to listen to him. And he was a decent guy, honestly. 

But if Pony had to get woken up by one of Cherri’s random broadcasts blaring through the radio at ass o’clock one more time, he was going to commit murder.


	41. milky way

“What do you think about when you’re looking up at all those stars?” Party asked softly as Jet’s hand stroked absentmindedly up and down his back. When Jet dragged his gaze away from the sky to answer, his eyes got snagged on Party’s wide-open ones looking at him, and he suddenly found himself completely unable to remember.


	42. it'll be a badass scar at least

“Hold still,” Party said shortly, pulling the thread all the way through and glaring at Kobra. “Don’t be a little bitch.”

“You have the worst bedside manner,” Kobra grunted.

“I also have the steadiest hands here,” they shot back. “Now shut up, unless you want Jet to stitch you up with his shaky digits.”

Kobra shut up.


	43. rockstar life

“What the fuck is he doing?” the first joy muttered, shading their eyes with one hand as they squinted at the antlike form that presumably belonged to the concert’s headlining act, who was supposed to be onstage in-- the joy checked their clipboard-- twelve minutes. The figure appeared to be doing a kind of spiritual dance on a hill. It seemed to involve lots of hopping and shouting, but it was hard to tell from so far away. 

“It’s his warmup,” the other joy said in a low voice. “He says he’s taunting the desert spirits.” She paused. “I don’t know why that’s supposed to help with his singing.” A piercing scream erupted from the hilltop as the two joys stood regarding it in silence.

The first joy sighed and tucked their clipboard away under their arm. Musicians. They were all incorrigible.


	44. how sweet

“Kiss it better?” Ghoul smirked. 

Party looked Ghoul dead in the eye, grabbed his injured hand, and licked it.


	45. i merely tolerate you

“Dude,” Party Poison said slowly, “We are going to be so fucking hungover in the morning.”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Fun Ghoul said, tripping and stumbling into Party, and Party’s legs didn’t really care enough to keep him stood up after that, so the two of them ended up in an unattractive tangle on the floor. It was okay though. Party was _way_ too drunk to mind.

Ghoul had his hand on Party’s chest; Party poked it and it wiggled half-heartedly. Party watched it interestedly for a few seconds. Then he rolled onto his side to look at Ghoul’s face. He was kinda cute. “You’re kinda cute,” Party said.

“Thanks,” Ghoul said, “You’re cute too.” Then he burped. 

“Oh, you’re so gross,” Party moaned, throwing one hand over his eyes and slapping at Ghoul with the other. Ghoul clumsily slapped back for a while until they both lost interest in fighting and lapsed into a brief silence. 

The Ghoul burped again.

“ _Gross_ ,” Party said, with feeling. 

“Yeah, and you love it,” Ghoul answered, trying to pull Party closer to him.

“I do _not_ ,” Party grumbled, but he slung an arm around Ghoul’s waist and definitely did not cop a feel of his ass.


	46. crushed

The poster didn’t really hold a candle to the real thing. In the grainy photo you couldn’t see the manic gleam in his eyes, or the tension in his frame, wound up like a wild animal. 

Party had been right up against the stage, once, and there was fucking nothing like it. You got pressed up so tight it felt like your lungs were gonna pop, and you were so close to the speakers your brain jiggled in your skull, but you didn’t give a damn, all you cared about was getting closer, closer, desperate to maybe, just maybe, get to touch his hand.

When you were that close, then, yeah, then you could see it. You could _feel_ it, the energy and the power and the fucking magic coursing through it all. It was almost like sex, Party’d once thought after a show, feeling sweaty and sore and blissed-out and well and truly _fucked_. He wanted to feel like that all the time.

Party touched his fingertip to the poster, carefully tracing the the outline of the frontman’s body. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and let his arm drop down again, falling to his side.

He hadn’t gotten to touch Mad Gear’s hand yet. But there was always the next show.


	47. unsolicited advice

“You ever think about dyeing it?” Pony asks, flicking at a strand of Ghoul's hair. 

Ghoul shakes his head. “Not really. This works fine.”

“I don't know, it's so dreary,” Pony says, “Like you're going to a funeral or something. If you got a flashy neon color it'd totally revolutionize your look.” 

“Don't think it would suit me.”

“You could rock a few streaks of blue at least,” Pony insists.

Ghoul tips his head back to the ceiling. “Maybe if I'm bored outta my skull I'll get Party to do blue streaks on me. Until then, the funeral stays.” He rolls his head over to look at Pony, who is sat cross-legged on the floor. “Anyway, who are you to talk? Brown's hardly flashy.”

“It used to be purple,” Pony says wistfully, “Once.” 

He shrugs. “But then Tommy stopped selling 'Senseless Violet’ and I figured, 'no point in finding a new brand if no one's ever gonna see the color under the helmet.’”

“Fair.”

“Anyway,” Pony says smugly, “I don't think anyone on the planet’s gonna mistake me for a funeral.”


	48. sharing is caring

Hot damn. Chocolate. Some real-shit, no-kidding, _chocolate_. Kobra could feel himself starting to drool.

He fumbled at the plastic wrapping, trying to rip it open without spilling the precious squares onto the ground. In a few seconds he had it, the Holy fucking Grail of confection, naked and exposed, melting slightly in his fingers. It was a thing of beauty, really it was. 

Kobra was just about to cram the entire bar in his mouth when he caught a glimpse of a small dirt-smudged face staring at him in his peripheral vision. He hesitated a moment too long, and those hopeful eyes got him like they always did.

With a deep sigh, he slumped his shoulders and held the chocolate bar out to the side, where it was snatched from his fingers with a squeal of delight. It’s about being a good person, he thought to himself. A responsible, selfless adult. 

He was pleasantly surprised to have a few squares of chocolate snuck back into his palm by a grubby yet delicate little hand.


	49. lesson learned? no

"Of course you got your ass kicked. What did you expect?"

“Oh, I don’t know,” Party said, glaring, “Maybe for my crewmate to actually step in and _stop me from getting my ass kicked_?”

Jet took a sip of his drink. “You kidding? There were like five of those chicks, man. _I_ know how to pick my battles.” He toasted Party’s black eye. “It’s a skill you should consider honing.” 

Party flipped him off.


	50. bants

Ghoul closes one eye, takes a breath, and knocks all six cans off the fence, one after the other. Bang.

He turns to Jet, arches an eyebrow, and pretends to blow smoke off the barrel of the raygun. “Like to see you beat that. I was the best shot in my class, cockyass.”

Jet knocks Ghoul’s shoulder with his own. “Yeah, yeah, get your gloating over with. Just remember I could kick your ass in hand-to-hand any day of the week.”

“Oh but Jet,” Ghoul says, looping his arm through Jet’s, “You would never use your superhuman strength for evil, would you?”

“I dunno,” Jet says, scratching his jaw. “Would crushing you really be considered evil?”

Ghoul considers this. “Yes,” he decides.

“Then I guess I have no choice but to let you live.”


	51. it's cuz he's long and skinny, see

"What’s that one from?”

“Barfight. The chick slammed my head onto a table.”

“What about that one?” Kobra asks, pointing to a different spot of discolored skin on Ghoul’s bicep.

“I caught myself on fire,” Ghoul explains.

“By accident?”

“Yes, by accident, why the fuck would I light myself on fire on purpose?”

Kobra shrugs. “I wouldn’t be surprised.” He rolls over from his stomach onto his side. “This one?” He points at a pale slash on Ghoul’s stomach.

“Oh, yeah. I got stabbed. That was a bitch.”

Kobra touches the scar with his finger, gently. “Badass, though.”

Ghoul grins at him. “Thanks, noodle.”

Kobra pokes his stomach again, hard, and Ghoul wheezes and curls up. “Stop! That tickles!”

“Teach you to call me noodle,” Kobra says, and starts trying to seriously tickle Ghoul.

“But you look like one!” Ghoul wails, trying in vain to deflect Kobra’s hands.


	52. let's go to make-out point

Party ducks their head again to kiss Pony, pushing their tongue into his mouth and feeling their eyes roll up into their head when Pony slips his hands into their hair. _Fuck_ yes. 

Pony makes an annoyed sound and Party pulls back to give him a confused look. “What? Am I doing something wrong?”

“No,” Pony says, “it’s just-- my leg is really twisted, can you give me a second?”

“Oh, yeah.” Party tries to clamber off of Pony and accidentally slides onto the floor of the car. Pony pulls them up again and the two of them giggle at each other for a second before going back to the important things, which are kissing and touching.

They manage to go another thirty seconds before Pony accidentally knees Party in the chin and Party falls off the seat again.


	53. bundled

Her voice comes out muffled from the layers of fabric. “I’m a burrito!”

“If you’re a burrito, then we have to eat you,” Kobra says, and she does a little scream-laugh of horror.

Party nudges her bundled-up form with his boot. “This is no burrito. This is a worm for sure.”

“A burrito!” she insists.

“Guess we’re having you for dinner then,” Kobra says.


	54. hermit

When Party visits NewsAGoGo, he usually goes alone. Party says it’s ‘cause GoGo doesn’t really like people. Kobra says it’s ‘cause people don’t like GoGo, but he only mutters that when Party’s not around, ‘cause otherwise Party would get all offended. 

“They’re not a bad person,” he’d bitch, “They just haven’t had a lot of practice talking to people.”

But this time, Party’s taking the Girl along. 

“Am I gonna like them?” she asks curiously, while they’re bouncing along in the car.

“Uh….” She sees Party’s mouth twist in the mirror when he answers: “….you might.” She lets it go, and returns her gaze to her comic book until the car finally comes to a halt. 

They’re deep in the desert, nothing around for miles– except for a big hump in the sand with a door in it. Party slings the bag he stuck in the backseat over his shoulder and walks purposefully towards the door, strutting in that way he does without even noticing, mask over his eyes and hands on his belt buckle. The Girl hurries behind him, trying to match his strides with her shorter legs.

Party steps in front of the door and just stands there for a second, fixing his hair. The Girl looks around, confused. “Aren’t you gonna go in?” she asks, and then jumps about a mile into the air when the rusty door suddenly swings open by itself. 

Party walks straight through, but the Girl follows more cautiously, peering down the dark, twisting staircase they’re faced with. Party looks back at her. “Well, c’mon, bunny. Don’t just stand there.”

They wind down the stairs for what feels like hours, and after that, they have to creep down a set of long, narrow tunnels. The Girl imagines things with teeth hiding in the shadows, and grabs Party’s hand. But Party seems to know exactly where he’s going, he never once pauses, not until they’re right in front of a black metal door. It has Christmas lights all around the edges, and a smiley-face sticker next to the handle. 

Once again, Party breezes right through, and the room they enter is so utterly unexpected that the Girl just has to stare. 

It’s just… normal. Shelves lining the walls, a couple ratty pink rugs on the floor. The lighting is dim, but the colors keep shifting, cast from a multicolored lamp perched on one of the shelves. On one side of the room is a cracked leather couch; on the other is a table and chairs, both loaded up with piles of paper. In a corner, the Girl can see a bed with an armful of stuffed animals scattered across the top. The weirdest thing about the room is the vast black curtain stretching across the back of it. 

“Your favorite surface-dweller has arrived!” Party shouts to the empty room.

“Mothafucka!” comes a happy shout, and then the curtain is swept aside and a small form comes sprinting over to slam into Party.

Party’s laughing and the person is squeezing Party tight with a hug and smiling, and the Girl kinda just stares at the two off them gushing all over each other. 

“You gotta visit me more, ratface,” the person says. They have black and blue hair and a striped shirt on. The Girl notices that they also have a pair of round, two-toned sunglasses tucked into their collar. They look younger than the Girl was expecting, younger than Kobra even, she thinks. 

Party pushes his mask onto the top of his head so it pins his hair back from his face. “I try, GoGo! But I’m a busy bee, you know how it is,” he says, and squeezes in a final hug before letting go. “Now we oughta get down to business.” He nods towards the curtain.

Then GoGo notices the Girl standing off to the side. “This your kid?” they say to Party. Party nods. 

NewsAGoGo squats down next to the Girl, peering at her with a frown. The Girl stares back. After a moment, GoGo says: “You’re kind of a squirt, huh?” and snaps their gum. 

The Girl glares. “Am not.”

GoGo straightens up. “Nah, you’re a squirt. But that’s cool. Wanna know why? ‘Cause I was a squirt too, and now I’m a badass bitch.”

They turn around and start walking back to the curtain. The Girl looks at Party, who shrugs and follows GoGo. The Girl tags along behind. 

When GoGo draws back the curtain, the Girl can’t help but gasp. If the room before was weirdly normal, what’s beyond the curtain certainly isn’t. 

TV screens line the walls, rows upon rows of flashing images, some moving so quick it makes the Girl’s eyes hurt. The whole room is dark– except for the light given off by the screens. 

NewsAGoGo walks over and sprawls in a chair, propping their feet up on an unmarked metal box. “Whatcha need then, redhead?”

Party slips the bag off of his shoulder and hands it to GoGo, who grabs it excitedly. “Well, it’s just I’ve been hearing these rumors about this setup in Zone 2–”

The Girl loses interest very quickly. The two of them just blab for ages about gangs and dracs and surveillance and whatever, boring shit, so she wanders back to the other room and hangs out there, snooping through all the stuff. She likes the stuffed animals on GoGo’s bed, especially this weird one that looks like a pink rabbit with a beak. He’s really creepy. She loves him.

After what feels like YEARS, the two of them finally emerge from the screen room. The Girl drops the stuffed animal like he burned her, but GoGo doesn’t seem to notice. Party hugs NewsAGoGo once and makes the Girl say goodbye, too.

They’re just out the door when the Girl suddenly hears a shout of, “Hold on!” She turns around to find GoGo standing before her, holding out the pink rabbit-thing.

They brush a long strand of blue hair out of their face and say, “Do you want this? Um. You can have it.”

The Girl stares up at them, wide-eyed, and nods yes.

–

Later that night, when they’re making the long drive home, the Girl asks Party a question.

“What was in the bag?” she says, making the stuffed animal walk along the dashboard. Driving alone with Party is the best because he lets her sit up front. And he goes really fast.

“Just some stuff,” Party answers. “Doodles, photos. NewsAGoGo doesn’t go outside much. I like to give them stuff they can’t get from Tommy.”

“Why doesn’t NewsAGoGo go outside?” she asks.

Party shrugs. “Dunno, bunny. Don’t think they trust the outside very much. That’s why they watch it through their screens all the time.”

The Girl considers this for a while. Then she asks, “Why don’t people like GoGo?”

Party makes a pissy face. “Probably for the same reason. GoGo doesn’t trust people, so people never bother to get to know them.”

“GoGo didn’t seem that bad to me,” The Girl says quietly, playing with the ears of the toy.

Party glances over at her and smiles. “Yeah, I think they liked you.”


	55. break of dawn

It’s Party’s restlessness that wakes Jet up, in the early grey hours of the morning (way too early for Jet’s brain to be stringing coherent thoughts together). The guy just can’t stop rolling over and huffing and kneeing Jet in the side. 

Exasperated, Jet hooks an arm over Party’s waist, scooping him up against Jet’s chest. Party doesn’t fight him, stops squirming pretty easy, and soon he’s settled down with his head tucked onto Jet’s outstretched arm. 

“We should get moving,” Party says, but his heart’s not in it.

“No,” Jet grumbles, shutting his eyes against the feeble rays of sunlight struggling through the boarded-up window. The room is coated in dust and the bed is lumpy, but he hasn’t had a chance to lie down in ages. Dawn is a conspiracy intended to inconvenience Jet Star specifically. “No,” he mumbles again, a little quieter.

Party makes a _tsk_ noise, the verbal equivalent of an eyeroll, and says, “Well if you’re gonna force me to cuddle you ‘til it’s high noon, I wanna be the big spoon instead.”

“Fine,” Jet says, and there’s a rustle of bedsheets and creak of springs as Party clambers over Jet’s body and settles behind him, pressing his face between Jet’s shoulder blades with an arm over Jet’s hips.

“Now you can pass out again, Sleepin’ Beauty,” Party says, and Jet can feel the vibrations of Party’s voice through his back. “I’ll protect you from the sun’s evil.”

Despite himself, even as he’s slipping back into a doze, Jet feels his lips twitch into a smile.


	56. can't bear it

“You’re selfish, you know.”

He scowls, hunching his shoulders and refusing to turn around.

“This is going to get us in trouble,” his older brother continues, in a low, clipped voice that makes him want to scream. “You are going to get us _all_ in trouble.”

His head is buzzing with thoughts on lockdown, and he twists his hands furiously in his lap, muscles tensed like they’re about to snap. He hears a rustling and the creak of mattress springs, but before his brother can get any closer, he stands up sharply. 

“I’m going out,” he snaps, and yanks the door open without waiting for a response. 

He hears a muttered curse behind him anyway, and slams the door shut so hard it makes the pills on the dresser rattle in their plastic vials.


	57. enough.

“Party.”

Kobra said it quietly, but the name seemed to startle Party, and he jerked around to stare at Kobra. Chest heaving, he looked at Kobra with wild eyes, like he was barely seeing him. Kobra stepped forward and reached out a hand. 

“That’s enough,” he said. “It’s dead.”

Party stared at Kobra for another second, before glancing down at the blade in his hands, as if noticing it for the first time. He licked his lips. His hands were shaking, but he still seemed reluctant to let go. 

Party twisted his head around to gaze at the body on the floor. He stared at it for a long time, panting heavily. Kobra dropped his hand and waited. 

Seconds ticked by like time had turned to molasses, but finally, Party pushed the hair out of his eyes, sheathed the knife with a flick of his wrist, and Kobra breathed again. 

“I don’t think those stains are coming out in the wash.”


	58. hush

It’s the little moments, Fun Ghoul thinks, like when Kobra starts snoring loud as shit, or Jet throws a leg over Ghoul’s waist, or Party Poison rolls over and knees him in the stomach. When Jet Star’s hair gets in his mouth, when Party sleepily laces their fingers together. When Kobra Kid presses his face into the back of Ghoul’s neck. That’s when Ghoul really gets what being in love feels like.


	59. pyro

His skin is carved in orange light, the shadows lurk behind his back. His eyes turn golden like the wolf’s, and they’re hard, so hard, brittle and cruel like broken bottles. He’s blood, he’s lava, he has scorched and blackened fingertips and he won’t look away from the fire, even as the heat ripples over them in waves and the building’s bones screech and creak in agony. Sparks fly, caught in cherry-candy hair, a halo around the patron saint of taking it too far. He’s beautiful and terrible to look at. 

Ghoul doesn’t like the expression on his face one bit.


End file.
